


He couldn't know that I loved him

by redpotter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 18:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20953205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpotter/pseuds/redpotter
Summary: But how could I not?





	He couldn't know that I loved him

**Author's Note:**

> i was going through my email and i found this i wrote back in 2015! hope you like it :)

**He couldn’t know that I loved him. **

It was the fourth year and he’d face that ridiculous Dragon. For a split second, I thought he would die. And that terrified me, I didn’t know why, I was at the edge of my seat and then he wasn’t dead – he was incredible, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. That was when I realized that I loved him, but perhaps I had loved him ever since the beginning.

Something strong always pulled me to him. I thought it was hatred at first, maybe resignation, but it wasn’t. It keep me up at night, and it made me notice him everywhere, I was so aware of him that I felt as though I wanted to jump out of my skin just to crawl around him.

The Yule Ball came and I knew he wouldn’t ask me, but I imagined how it would feel to have those green eyes glued on me as he asked me, how it would feel to have his hand wrapped around mine. I heard him telling to Weasley that he’d rather have the dragon again than to ask a girl to the ball and my mood lifted – Draco meant dragon after all.

In the end, it wasn’t right, he went with that Patil girl and spend the whole night tagging along with his Weasley – the one he had chosen over me.

When he came back with Cedric’s body on his arms and telling that the Dark Lord had risen again, I held my breath, I knew what was waiting for me when I came home. I tried to warn him, I tried to get him back, to get him to me again, but of course he refused. That’s how it was supposed to be, everything about him made it impossible for him to ever want me – and still, I loved him. For every single thing that he was.

It was the 5th year, and he was angrier than I had ever seen him. There was something dark behind his eyes, whispering along with his voice, he was harsher, he was ruthless, I had never seen him like that. He was kinder before, or at least he appeared to be, and now he was more aware, more irritable, and I could get under his skin like I had never been able to before. Of course, that gave me power, and I have always loved power, and I loved to see those furious glares swallowing me up – it was like I owned him, and there was nothing else in this world but him. But you see, I hated when people did the same. I knew they meant it, and I didn’t, and in the end perhaps I was just trying to protect him from the harsh, raw truth. I needed to protect him, so I made him angrier.

**He couldn’t know that I loved him, so I pretended not to.**

The following year was horrible. I tried to forget about him while I tried to keep myself alive, but how could I? He was everywhere, and for the first time he was the one following me and not the other way around, and I knew deep down that if I wasn’t terrified for my life, I would had told him that I loved him. But I didn’t, he couldn’t know, and I couldn’t look him in the eyes after I almost killed his best friend – yes, the one he had chosen over me, but Weasley was important to Harry and I never… I never meant to hurt anything that mattered to him.

When he found me at that bathroom, I wanted him to save me. He looked at me, his bright green eyes, his stupid round glasses, and he looked so torn between amusement and pity. I was a mess, and he was there, and I was split between how much my heart ached for him and how much it ached for myself that I did the first, and most stupid thing, that came to my mind. I started duelling and then I was bleeding and he was there, all around me, and there was only pain. I thought I’d die, and maybe I’d die a bit happy because I had his hand on my arm and if I could linger to it… linger to his warm hand and his pleading voice…

But I didn’t die, and sometimes I wish I had died, when I saw him with the Weasley girl. I wanted that smile to be mine, and those hands, I wanted them with me, and I was alive but what for? I’d die soon enough and I wouldn’t have his hand on my arm anymore, and I was desperate, but then things eventually worked out.

I was at that tower and I wanted him to be there, if he was there I would have gone with him, but he wasn’t and it dawned on me how alone I was… There, with my hand shaking, and my empty words, my dried throat, and how much I wanted him to be there, oh Harry, I wish he could save me, I wish he could stop me, but he never cared. There was only void around me, and inside of me everything ached for him. But he wasn’t there, he would never be there.

**He couldn’t know that I loved him, because he would never love me back.**

The only thing that kept me breathing during that year was his memory. I made himself mine, I carried his picture with me in my shirt pocket, and I tried to keep strong. For him. He would fix it. Not for me, but he would, and I believed in him more than I had ever believed in anything else.

Then he was there, at my own house, and I couldn’t tell them it was him, I wanted to scream at him for getting caught, I wanted him to take me away but he didn’t. He took my wand with him, and it was a part of me, a part I gave willingly. I wanted him to take it. I wanted him to save the world with it. I would give him everything that I could.

I couldn’t resist the temptation of following him around in Hogwarts, so I didn’t, I was there and it was him. Finally him. Crabbe and Goyle had followed me and I couldn’t find a way to make them turn back, so they came along and that didn’t matter… I just wanted to see him.

Then, fire. I thought it would swallow me up, I thought I would die there and we’d all die there but he came around and he saved me and I had him in my arms finally, but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t like that. I held him tight and I held tight to that moment, I didn’t want to let him go but I knew I should do as soon as possible because if I didn’t I might never let go.

He was dead, but then he wasn’t, and it was a new chance, and I wanted it for me. If he had a new chance at being alive, I wanted a new chance at being _his_, so I went to him after the battle, I looked straight into his eyes and I said:

“Friends, Potter?” While stretching out my hand, and I knew that if he refused it I’d crumble down, but I wanted that chance, and his brows were furrowed while he stared at my hand but soon enough it turned into a smile and when he shook my hand, I thought I’d leak from my fingertips.

And we were true friends, and I never thought I’d enjoy being around someone as much as I did with him. Because perhaps I had always loved him, but I loved a thought, I loved a tiny scrap of hope and he was so much more than that. He made me laugh, and he made me love him in a way that I didn’t think was possible. I loved being around him, and I loved how he got me, and everything was so simple. Everything was so natural.

So natural that I didn’t mind when he wrapped his hand around mine and pulled me closer when I was blocking the way. So natural that I didn’t mind when he hugged me tight, his smile on my cheek. It didn’t feel weird. It didn’t make me feel anything other than complete and absolute love for him.

But it didn’t last, because good things never do for me, and I was taken from him, taken to a trial were he begged them not to take me. But not even the Boy Who Lived could change their minds as they sentenced me. I was taken from him, and I saw his desperate eyes following me, and perhaps that gave me some sort of satisfaction because this time I wasn’t alone anymore.

And he was there. He was there every week, in that small cell, talking to me, offering me chocolate cake, because he knew I loved it. And I tried so hard not to fade away during the other 6 days when I didn’t see him, I tried so hard to keep myself strong for that one hour when I’d see his green eyes, his clumsy hands trying to tell me about something that happened during the week, his shirt that was too big for him. When he was there, I could even forget that I was on Azkaban, and that I’d never leave, and that someday he’d just stop going there. He’d stop, and I’d stop too, perhaps, because I couldn’t imagine to live inside the void without him there to try to take me back to somewhere real.

I saw how he hesitantly put his hands on my shoulder, and how his eyes were earnest and true and I considered, for the first time, that perhaps he loved me back. But what future did we have, when I was locked away? What future did he have, with me, when I was nothing but one hour out of the other 168 hours of a week?

**He couldn’t know that I loved him, because I didn’t want to break him.**

I tried to be selfless for the first time in my life and I tried to push him away, but his eyes begged me not to, and his warm, calloused hands were on my shoulders, I was crying and so was he, as he promised me he would fix it… he would take me home. But I was home, wasn’t I? Being with him was being at home, and I wanted him, I wanted him all the time.

I rested my head on the crook of his neck and I felt safe.

He put my arms around him and I felt protected.

I listened to him breathing and I felt guarded.

But then he was gone.

I lost the track of days as he didn’t show up there anymore. I started wondering if he wasn’t just an illusion. I wanted to get my old picture of him back. I didn’t want to forget, but the lines that form his face were starting to get blurry and I couldn’t forget about him. Not him.

Hands that weren’t his grabbed my arm and took me somewhere else. Everything was dark, and it smelled rotten, and I wondered if I’d die then. Alone and cold like a hungry child, desperately grovelling, so small, so small…

I could almost feel it. The coldness that grew inside of me, swallowing me up. They approach me, and I can only see dark robes through the dim light, my breath is caught on my throat as I ask myself _where is Harry…_

He didn’t love me, he never cared about me, and I’d die alone now without his warm hand to keep me steady and suddenly I felt as though my soul had already been sucked out, there was nothing there for them. Nothing. I was already cold and dead and miserable inside. There was no reason for them to go through with it –

Then, it stopped. There was light, and there was warmth, and I saw a familiar silver stag glimmering in front of me, I didn’t know why it was familiar until I felt a warm hand on mine.

“Hey” He said, and I started shaking, he held me “It’s over” He whispered “It’s over” He whispered again.

We were at his house, it was warm, the light was dim but it felt comfortable, I was dirty and cold, he was there clean and warm, and he looked at me. He was so close. His thumb brushed under my eye, it caught a tear, my heart was swelling, he was getting closer…

“Fuck, Draco” he said under his breath. There were tears on his eyes too. “I thought I’d lose you”

And I wanted to hold him tight, to tell him he’d never lose me, I’d always be his and no one else’s and perhaps that was a side effect of my desperation, yes, perhaps I was just clinging to the only light I could see but the truth was that there had never been a light so bright as him in my life. He blinded me for everything else.

Our noses bumped when he kissed me. I could feel his smile on my lips, and he pulled me closer, his head tilted, his lips hesitant but earnest, true. I kissed him back with all the energy I had left, I melted, my hands grabbing the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer, pulling him to me. Finally mine, finally all around me, his arms strong behind me, holding me tight, holding me into place. I put my hand on the curve of his jaw as our tongues met, I feel like I was bursting, I couldn’t believe that that was finally, actually happening.

He loved me.

**He couldn’t know that I loved him, but in the end he figured it out.**


End file.
